Homeward Bound

Well my dear friends, there is only so much excitement a girl can take and I think I am almost at overload! The year that has just passed me by has been a tremendous joy; full of fun, adventure, friends and new experiences. But now I begin the journey that takes me homeward, which is where I know that I belong. No one expected me to disappear forever, I am far too Australian and attached to my home, family and friends to be absent for too long!

This experience of travel has been much less bumpy along the way than my last sojourn. So many things have contributed to this; maturity, money, companionship…I think perhaps this was the real key. Sharing this journey with my lovely gentleman has made it all so much the sweeter. I feel that we come home as a more unified, solid couple than the day we departed (this could just be the natural result of time passing...or...it could be that you really need to learn to like and love the other when the companionship is so constant and when there is no other shoulder to rest upon). I think without each other this journey would not have lasted and certainly would not have been dotted with so many lovely trips throughout Europe and our new "homeland".

I have been a terrible correspondent over the last months and failed to update you all on the travel, work and the general experience of settling into our home. But there has been so much going on that finding the time to write just seemed an insignificant priority. I won’t bore you now with a detailed summary of the ups, down’s, in’s and out’s…just know that it has been fabulous, hard, interesting and wonderful. And that we come home fully satisfied with our lot!

I think a particular highlight for us was the house share, which despite saying we would leave; we remained in the entire time. It has been full of fabulous spontaneous support, friendship and fun. Just last night I helped decorate 100 cupcakes for a housemate to raise money for charity…before pasting the icing onto our own faces and posing for photos!

Work has been an interesting component to our lives over here. The recession was not a friend or ally when it came to finding work and finding work that we necessarily wanted! The experience for JJ was not what we had anticipated and was somewhat sporadic and unpredictable. And for me, well, as I sit pondering on my second last day of employment at TR, I can see what I will take away from it all. Working in this role has given me exposure across Europe (including a few cushy work trips to places like Oslo and Dublin) and the US and opened up a whole new insight into different cultures and workflows. It has been fascinating working with a multilingual team, listening to them dive in and out of the many different languages that they are ALL able to speak. Although this aspect has managed to make my feel ever so slightly inadequate! I am stoked to have been able to operate in a management role that has given me the autonomy to make decisions, implement changes, develop workflows and manage my time with out a hawk watching over me. Although TR is not where I ultimately see myself, it has certainly helped me to carve a clearer picture of the future that I do desire and it has equipped me with knowledge that will be priceless in moving forwards.

I leave London with some very happy memories, many new friends and new skills. I feel that I am on the brink; I could stay and become fully absorbed into the expat life, or return home to the comfort of a beautiful country, gorgeous friends and the best family I could ask for. Although the former is tempting, to disappear entirely into a different world, the latter is most definitely my preference!

I look forward to keeping you all updated on all the travels we have ahead of us and even more I cannot wait to swap stories with you in person! We still have so much ahead of us, but home is on the horizon; so see you soon!

PS. I have found a few travel quotes that I quite like and thought that I would share them with you, rather than being essentially about travel, they are about returning home after travel...

"As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own".
- Margaret Mead

"You may wonder, 'How can I leave it all behind if I am just coming back to it? How can I make a new beginning if I simply return to the old?' The answer lies in the return. You will not come back to the 'same old thing.' What you return to has changed because you have changed. Your perceptions will be altered. You will not incorporate into the same body, status, or world you left behind. The river has been flowing while you were gone. Now it does not look like the same river".
- Steven Foster

And finally a few words of wisdom from Mark Twain:
"We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can wow and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. All our passengers are paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in view which I have mentioned. The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass".